Jekyll2019-02-21T22:49:09+00:00http://blog.jaysinh.com/Jaysinh’s own heedI am a Full-stack developer by profession, Computer scientist by heart and an Actor by gene. I write mostly on programming topics. Browse through my blog posts to identify my taste of writing.
PyDelhi Conf 2017: A beautiful conference happened in New Delhi, India2017-07-21T12:44:03+00:002017-07-21T12:44:03+00:00http://blog.jaysinh.com/2017/07/21/pydelhi-conf-2017-a-beautiful-conference-happend-at-new-delhi-india<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/group_photo.jpg" alt="PyDelhi Conf
2017" /></p>
<h2 id="tldr">TL;DR</h2>
<p><a href="https://conference.pydelhi.org">PyDelhi conf 2017</a> was a two-day conference which featured
workshops, dev sprints, both full-length and lightning talks. There were
workshop sessions without any extra charges. Delhiites should not miss the
chance to attend this conference in future. I conducted a workshop titled
<strong>“Tango with Django”</strong> helping beginners to understand the Django web
framework.</p>
<h2 id="detailed-review">Detailed Review</h2>
<h3 id="about-the-pydelhi-community">About the <a href="https://pydelhi.org/">PyDelhi community</a></h3>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/pydelhi_community.jpg" alt="PyDelhi
Community" /></p>
<p class="center"> PyDelhi conf 2017 volunteers </p>
<p>The <a href="https://pydelhi.org/">PyDelhi community</a> was known as NCR Python Users Group
before few years. This community is performing a role of an umbrella
organization for other FLOSS communities across New Delhi, India. They are
actively arranging monthly <a href="http://wwww.meetup.com/pydelhi">meetups</a> on interesting topics. Last
<a href="https://in.pycon.org/2016/">PyCon India</a> which is a national level conference
of Python programming language was impressively organized by this community.
This year too they took the responsibility of managing it. I am very thankful to
this community for their immense contribution to this society. If you are around
New Delhi, India then you should not miss the chance to attend their
<a href="http://wwww.meetup.com/pydelhi">meetups</a>. This community has great people who are always happy
to mentor.</p>
<h3 id="pydelhi-conf-2017"><a href="https://conference.pydelhi.org">PyDelhi conf 2017</a></h3>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/t_shirt.jpg" alt="Conference T-shirt" /></p>
<p class="center"> Conference T-shirt </p>
<p>PyDelhi conf is a regional level conference of Python programming language
organized by PyDelhi community. It is their second year organizing this
conference. Last year it was located at <a href="http://www.jnu.ac.in">JNU University</a>.
This year it happened at <a href="https://www.iiml.ac.in/">IIM, Lucknow</a> campus based in
Noida, New Delhi, India. I enjoyed various talks which I will mention later
here, a workshops section because I was conducting one and some panel
discussions because people involved were having a good level of experience. 80%
of the time slot was divided equally between 30 minutes talk and 2-hour workshop
section. 10% were given to panel discussions and 10% was reserved for lightning
talks. The dev sprints were happening in parallel with the conference. The
early slot was given to workshops for both the days. One large conference hall
was located on a 2nd floor of the building and two halls at the ground floor.
Food and beverages were served on the base floor.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/pannel_disussion.jpg" alt="Panel discussion" /></p>
<p class="center"> Panel Discussion </p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/desk.jpg" alt="Desk" /></p>
<p class="center"> Registration desk </p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/lunch.jpg" alt="Lunch" /></p>
<p class="center"> Tea break </p>
<h3 id="keynote-speakers">Keynote speakers</h3>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/ricardo.jpg" alt="Mr. Richardo Rocha" /></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardo-rocha-739aa718/?ppe=1"><strong>Mr. Ricardo Rocha:</strong></a> Mr. Rocha is a
software engineer at <a href="https://home.cern/">CERN</a>. I got some time to talk with him
post-conference. We discussed his responsibilities at <a href="https://home.cern/">CERN</a>. I was
impressed when he explained how he is managing infrastructure with his team.
On inquiring opportunities available at <a href="https://home.cern/">CERN</a> he mentioned that the
organization is always looking for the talented developers. New grads can
keep an eye on various Summer Internship Programs which are very similar to
Google Summer of Code program.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/chris.jpg" alt="Mr. Chris Stucchio" /></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.chrisstucchio.com/"><strong>Mr. Chris Stucchio:</strong></a> Mr. Stucchio is
director of Data Science at <a href="https://vwo.com/">Wingify/ VWO</a>. I found him
physically fit compared to other software developers (mostly of India). I
didn’t get much time to have a word with him.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="interesting-talks">Interesting Talks</h3>
<p>Because I took the wrong metro train, I was late for the inaugural ceremony. I
also missed a keynote given by Mr. Rocha. Below talks were impressively
presented at the conference.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/CwTnUvHo6d8?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg"><strong>Let’s talk about GIL by Mr. Amit Kumar:</strong></a>
<a href="http://iamit.in/">Mr. Kumar</a> discussed various ways to trace threads first and
then moved the track towards Global Interpreter Lock. He described why the GIL
is important in <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython">CPython</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/QCZ31d9dqF4?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg"><strong>Concurrency in Python 3.0 world - Oh my! by Mr. Anand Pillai:</strong></a>
<a href="https://youtu.be/I41LTEWzluU">Mr. Pillai</a> is well experienced in programming using Python
language. I like getting his advices on various programming topics. He
explained how <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html">async</a> IO can be leveraged to boost your programs. I got
few correct references on understanding latest API of the <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html">async</a>
library.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/n5xUTcsrRns"><strong>Property based testing 101 by Aniket
Maithani:</strong></a> I always enjoy chit chatting with
<a href="http://www.aniketmaithani.net/">Mr. Maithani</a> during conferences. He has
jolly nature and always prepared with one liner. He discussed various
strategies for generating demo data for test cases. I was amazed by his
references, tips and tricks for generating test data.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I love discussing with people rather than sit in on sessions. With that
ace-reason, I always lose some important talks presented at the conference. I do
not forget to watch them once they are publicly available. This year I missed
following talks.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/I41LTEWzluU"><strong>Optimizing Django for building high-performance systems by Mr. Sanyam
Khurana</strong></a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/xo9QhfaefzY"><strong>Mocking in Python by Mr. Saurabh Kumar</strong></a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="volunteer-party">Volunteer Party</h3>
<p>I got a warm invitation by the organizers to join the volunteer party, but I was
little tensed about my session happening on the next day. So, I decided to go
home and improve the slides. I heard from friends that the party was awesome!</p>
<h3 id="my-workshop-session">My workshop session</h3>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/talk_2.jpg" alt="Tango with Django" /></p>
<p class="center"> Me conducting workshop </p>
<p>I conducted a workshop on Django web framework. “Tango with Django” was chosen
as a title with a thought of attracting beginners. I believe this title is
already a name of famous book solving the same purpose.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/jaysinhp/tango-with-django-78119081">Slides</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/jr6LWM7Yquk">Video Youtube</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dev-sprints">Dev sprints</h3>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/devsprint.jpg" alt="Dev sprints" /></p>
<p class="center"> Me hacking at dev sprints section </p>
<p>The dev sprints were happening parallel with the conference. <a href="https://youtu.be/I41LTEWzluU">Mr.
Pillai</a> was representing
<a href="https://github.com/pythonindia/junction">Junction</a>. I decided to test few
issues of <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython">CPython</a> but didn’t do much. There were a bunch of people
hacking but didn’t find anything interesting. The quality of chairs was so an
impressive that I have decided to buy the same for my home office.</p>
<h3 id="why-attend-this-conference">Why attend this conference?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Free Workshops:</strong> The conference has great slot of talks and workshops.
Workshops are being conducted by field experts without expecting any other
fees. This can be one of the great advantages you leverage from this
conference.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Student discounts:</strong> If you are a student then you will receive a discount
on the conference ticket.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Beginner friendly platform:</strong> If you are novice speaker than you will get
mentorship from this community. You can conduct a session for beginners.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Networking:</strong> You will find senior employees of tech giants, owner of
innovative start-ups and professors from well-known universities participating
in this conference. It can be a good opportunity for you to network with
them.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="what-was-missing">What was missing?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Lecture hall arrangement:</strong> It was difficult to frequently travel to the
second floor and come back to the ground floor. I found most people were
spending their time on the ground floor rather than attending talks going on
upstairs.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>No corporate stalls:</strong> Despite having corporate sponsors like Microsoft I
didn’t find any stall of any company.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>The venue for dev sprints:</strong> The rooms were designed for teleconference
containing circularly arranged wooden tables. This was not creating a
collaborative environment. Involved projects were not frequently promoted
during the conference.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="thank-you-pydelhi-community">Thank you PyDelhi community!</h3>
<p>I would like to thank all the known, unknown volunteers who performed their best
in arranging this conference. I am encouraging <a href="https://pydelhi.org/">PyDelhi</a>
community for keep organizing such an affable conference.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/groups/pydelhi/">Conference Photos</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg">Talk videos</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="proofreaders-mr-daniel-foerster-mr--dhavan-vaidya-mr-sayan-chowdhury-mr-trent-buck">Proofreaders: <a href="https://medium.com/@pydsigner">Mr. Daniel Foerster</a>, <a href="http://codingquark.com/">Mr. Dhavan Vaidya</a>, <a href="https://sayanchowdhury.dgplug.org/">Mr. Sayan Chowdhury</a>, <a href="https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TrentBuck">Mr. Trent Buck</a></h6>Jaysinh ShuklaPycon Pune 2017: A wonderful Python conference2017-03-14T12:48:02+00:002017-03-14T12:48:02+00:00http://blog.jaysinh.com/2017/03/14/pycon-pune-2017-a-wonderful-python-conference<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pycon_pune_group_photo.jpg" alt="pycon_pune_group_photo" /></p>
<h2 id="tldr">tl;dr</h2>
<p>The conference is worth attending if you are a student, programmer or a
hobbyist. If you are a swag-hungry then don’t expect much as a swag from this
conference. If you are a Devsprint lover, then this conference has the coolest
Devsprint. A great number of keynote speakers are invited for this conference.</p>
<h2 id="detailed-experience">Detailed Experience</h2>
<p>Because I was volunteering for this conference I reached Pune one day earlier
than the conference days. The volunteer meeting was happening at Reserved-bit.</p>
<h3 id="volunteer">Volunteer</h3>
<h4 id="reserved-bit">Reserved-bit</h4>
<p><a href="https://reserved-bit.com">Reserved-bit</a> is the best hackerspace I have ever come across. It
has a large collection of programmable boards. You will find boards like
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi">Raspberry Pi</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pi">Bana
Pi</a>,
<a href="https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/dragonboard-410c">Dragonboard</a>,
<a href="https://www.bigalsmods.com/product-p/1001.htm">Bigalbon</a>,
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit">BBC-microbit</a> and the 3D printer.
Furthermore, this space has a great collection of books on Compilers and
Embedded programming. I managed to found few on open-source too. The owners are
great hackers. You will love to interact with hacker <a href="https://siddhesh.in/">Siddhesh
Poyarekar</a>. Hacker <a href="https://twitter.com/nisha_poyarekar">Nisha
Poyarekar</a> is volunteering the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/PyLadies-Pune/">PyLadies
community</a> at Pune.</p>
<h4 id="pune-to-mumbai">Pune to Mumbai</h4>
<p>I spent my half day in this space. I got the responsibility of receiving one of
the keynote speakers who was landing at Mumbai airport midnight. To be frank,
estimation of Google Maps between Pune to Mumbai is wrong. It showed nearly 2
hours but it took almost 4.5 hours to reach Mumbai. It took few more minutes to
reach the airport. The road is impressively smooth. You will encounter the
beautiful mountains of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonavla">Lonavla</a>. The
task of moving from Pune to Mumbai airport, receive Katie and come back to Pune
was completed in almost 13 hours. I left from Pune around 4.30 PM and came back
at nearly 5 AM next day early morning.</p>
<h4 id="illness-during-conference">Illness during conference</h4>
<p>Because I did a huge amount of traveling at that night, I was unable to get
enough sleep. Such tiredness resulted in an eye infection. I managed to attend
the first day of the conference, but I was not in a condition to attend the
second day. Treatment from local doctor healed me in two days and then I was
able to take part into Devsprint.</p>
<h3 id="conference">Conference</h3>
<p>The conference was a total of 4 days where the initial two days were for the
talks and the end was assigned for a Devsprint. It didn’t overwhelmed me with
many tracks but gave the quality talks presented in a single track. The talks
were set from 9 AM to 5 PM which was taken little lightly by the attendees.</p>
<p>I was pretty impressed with the keynote speakers of this conference.</p>
<h4 id="katie-cunningham"><a href="https://twitter.com/kcunning">Katie Cunningham</a></h4>
<p>Katie is the O’Reilly author. Her
<a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024514.do">book</a> on Accessibility
depicts her area of expertise. She is fun to talk to. She likes to listen about
developer communities, writing and most importantly computer games. Her broad
vision on product development is amazing. She is an avid reader. I enjoyed
listening to her experience of being in India for the very first time.</p>
<h4 id="honza-kral"><a href="https://twitter.com/honzakral">Honza Kral</a></h4>
<p>Honza is the dude who loves contributing to
<a href="https://www.djangoproject.com/">Django</a>. He is a core contributor of Django
too. He hacks on Python drivers at <a href="https://www.elastic.co/">Elastic</a>. I was
impressed with his suggestions on a code design problem I was trying to solve
from the past few months. His suggestions on code design are worth noticing. He
is a vimmer and maintains little <a href="http://www.vim.org">vim</a> plugins as a part of his
interest.</p>
<h4 id="stephen-j-turnbull"><a href="https://twitter.com/yasegumi">Stephen J. Turnbull</a></h4>
<p>Stephen professes the Dismal Science of Economics. His knowledge is deep-rooted
just like his beard. You will enjoy discussing computer science, books and
his experience of programming. He is authoring few books written in the Japanese
language. Stephen is <a href="https://www.gnu.org/s/emacs/">Emacsite</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/stephen_turnbull.jpg" alt="stephen_turnbull" /></p>
<h4 id="terri-oda"><a href="https://twitter.com/terriko">Terri Oda</a></h4>
<p>Terri is a security nerd. She spent most of her time exploring tools at Intel.
Terri knows how to hide from the spying of the U.S. Government. She is leading
<a href="https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/">Google Summer of Code</a> section from
<a href="https://www.python.org/psf/">Python Software Foundation</a>. Terri is PSF
community service award winner. If you are a student and want to take part in
GSoC choosing PSF as your organization then she is the right person to talk to.</p>
<h4 id="florian-fuchs"><a href="https://github.com/flofuchs">Florian Fuchs</a></h4>
<p>His knowledge on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer">ReST
API</a> construction
is the best. He is a <a href="https://falconframework.org/">Falcon</a> nerd too. I enjoyed
discussing various authentication mechanisms for ReST API with him. He is a
Red Hatter.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/gnu_mailman_team.jpg" alt="gnu_mailman_team" /></p>
<h4 id="nick-coghlan"><a href="https://twitter.com/ncoghlan_dev">Nick Coghlan</a></h4>
<p>Nick listens more than he speaks. I will advise you to not disturb him if he is
coding. He enjoys concentrating while coding. Getting his mentorship was a great
experience. He has been contributing to <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython">Core
Python</a> for a decade now. You will enjoy
discussing on interesting code compositions with him. He is a Red Hatter.</p>
<h4 id="praveen-patil"><a href="https://twitter.com/_gnovi">Praveen Patil</a></h4>
<p>Unfortunately, I didn’t get much time to talk with Praveen during this
conference. He is a math teacher who teaches concepts of mathematics using
Python programming language. You should feel confident to speak with him on
Python in education and mathematics with him.</p>
<h4 id="john-hawley"><a href="https://github.com/warthog9">John Hawley</a></h4>
<p>John is the wittiest person that I know. His lines always end with humor. He
hacks mostly on hardware and GNU/Linux. Micro Python and GNU/Linux should be
considered as part of his interests.</p>
<p>I am sad to declare that I was unable to attend any keynote speeches because of
the illness. Mostly I rested at the hotel or talked with people during the
conference days.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/pycon_pune_2017_keynote_speakers.jpg" alt="pycon_pune_2017_keynote_speakers" /></p>
<h4 id="volunteer-party">Volunteer Party</h4>
<p>If you are volunteering for this conference, then you will be invited to a
volunteer dinner party. We enjoyed party colored disco lights dancing on the
bits of the DJ. Punjabi food was served, and if you were above 25 than you were
allowed to take a sip of a beer.</p>
<h4 id="devsprint">Devsprint</h4>
<p>Devsprint happen at the <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/mXeirzQhPFz">Red Hat Headquarters,
Pune</a>. I found the building has tight security.
You will find an individual pantry section dedicated to each department. We were
instructed to hack at a huge cafeteria section. I myself contributed to Core
Python. Nick Coghlan was mentoring for Core Python. I reviewed one PR, found one
broken test case and wrote a fix of an existing issue with his help. Honza was
leading the development of Django web framework. A team of <a href="http://anandology.com/">Anand
Chitipothu</a> mentored for <a href="http://www.web2py.com/">Web2py</a>.
<a href="https://twitter.com/fhackdroid">Farhaan Bukhsh</a> mentored for
<a href="https://github.com/pypingou/pagure">Pagure</a>. John Hawley encouraged
contributing to <a href="https://micropython.org/">MicroPython</a>. Terr Oda, Stephen
Turnbull and Florian Fuchs mentored for
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Mailman">GNU/Mailman</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.jaysinh.com/assets/images/cpython_devsprint.jpg" alt="cpython_devsprint" /></p>
<h4 id="why-attend-this-conference">Why attend this conference?</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p>This conference has the coolest Devsprint. The organizers understand the value
of the Devsprint in a conference. I have never observed such an importance of
Devsprint at any other Python conference happening in India.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you are a student, then this is a beginner friendly conference. Don’t be
afraid to attend if you are a Python noob. You will receive a student
concession for the tickets too.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you are a developer, coming to this conference will inspire you to grow
from your present level. You will meet core contributors, lead programmers,
owners of startups and project managers. You will find a huge scope of
opportunities to network with people.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The conference is single track event. This decision helped me to not miss the
interesting talks. In my previous experience, parallel tracks forced me to
choose between talks when I was interested in both, which killed me.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I have never seen such a huge amount of keynote speakers at any conference
happening in India. Keynote speakers were the main attraction of this
conference.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="what-was-missing">What was missing?</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p>If you are a swag-hungry fellow than attending this conference won’t be worth
it. The conference attendees have to be satisfied with the conference T-shirt.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I observed there were fewer corporate stalls than at other Python conferences.
A stole from Reserved-bit, Red Hat and PSF community stall was there.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A workshop section was completely missing. In my opinion, the workshop helps
the beginners to start. There were a few topics which can be better
represented as workshop rather than a talk.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I was unable to observe any dedicated section for an open space discussion.
This section is helpful for communities and contributors to discuss
interesting problems and think together.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h6 id="proofreader-benaiah-mischenko-chameleon">Proofreader: <a href="https://benaiah.me/">Benaiah Mischenko</a>, <a href="https://chameleon.kingdomofmysteries.xyz/">Chameleon</a></h6>Jaysinh ShuklaThe conference is worth attending if you are a student, programmer or a hobbyist. If you are a swag-hungry then don't expect much as a swag from this conference. If you are a Devsprint lover, then this conference has the coolest Devsprint. A great number of keynote speakers are invited for this conference.